BlackGate: Chapter 1 - Charity
by Prangles
Summary: I do not own any of the Batman characters. They are exclusive to DC Comics and Warner Bros. This was a "what if" scenario that I had in my head that I wanted to write. Please do not hesitate to throw some constructive criticism my way. I'd love to continue this if there's enough interest from this community.


**BlackGate – Alternative Universe Batman story **

The snowflakes fall effortlessly to the ground and evaporate. In the streets of Gotham City, one of the country's most profitable metropolises, the hustle and bustle of last minute Christmas Eve shopping is contrasted with streetwalkers clucking for a fix; each with their own flair and finesse to their wardrobes. The smeared lipstick occasionally allows words to flutter from their mouths.

"You wanna fuck?" the hooker says to the pale, overweight mother walking with her equally chunky daughter from the toy store. The mother raises her lip and bares a brown tooth at the purveyor.

"You wanna fuck off? You're a disgusting human being." The toothy child, grasping her hand, smiles at the mother in approval. The portly woman walks down the street in victory. The other patrons of Gotham cheer her on with gusto.

The hooker looks at the woman in amazement and a gaping mouth. "It's okay if your hubby don't want you no more, ya fat bitch." The surrounding patrons have already started forming a circle around the two combatants.

The woman turns to the scantily clad working girl, abandons her child amongst the crowd of strangers, and immediately stomps toward her in a maddening rage.

The incident catches the eye of Officer James Gordon, a lanky man in his Gotham City Police Department uniform, places the two cups of coffee down on a nearby stoop and j-walks to the nearby fight. As he crosses the street, a car nearly strikes Jim Gordon down.

The car screeches and comes to a complete stop but not before Jim taps on the hood of the car.

A teenager – tatted and pierced - nervously waves off the police officer and continues down the street. He places his hand on the screwdriver in a vain attempt to shield it from prying eyes of the GCPD and adjacent vehicles.

Gordon squeezes through the crowd but is having no luck.

"GCPD! Disperse immediately!" A few civilians hear the officer's plea and comply but the circle is still formed around the two competitors. Suddenly, the faint cries of a child catch Jim's attention. The portly child sits on the cold, wet ground crying for her mother. Jim squats down to the child and examines her.

"Show me where it hurts." Jim can barely get a look at the little girl before someone pushes him down onto his side. Through the forest of citizens, Gordon can still see the little girl sitting down and getting pushed, left and right, by the inattentive crowd.

Gordon struggles to find his footing amongst the gaggle of citizens and liberates the little girl from the forest of legs and ankles. He resumes his examination of the little girl. Scrapes and scratches cover her face and arms.

"What's your name?"

The little girl sniffs and composes herself before giving an answer. "Suzy."

"Suzy," Gordon takes a deep sigh. "I'm going to give you something to keep you safe." He takes off his police hat and gives it to her but not before he brushes the fresh powder from it. She accepts it with reticence.

"As long as you have that on, no one can hurt you." Suzy places the oversized hat onto her head. "Where's your mother?" Gordon asks but has a faint idea of where her parent is.

The mob collectively gasps at some crucial turn of events that has taken place in their evening entertainment.

Suzy points to the crowd. "She's beating up that hooker." Taken aback by the little girl's choice of words, Gordon marches back toward the crowd. He pushes and prods to the center of the crowd. When he gets to the center of the crowd, he cringes at the horrific sight that has become all too familiar to him.

The portly woman had been stabbed four times by the hooker and her switchblade. With blood soaked hands, the streetwalker glances up at Gordon and holds up her bloodstained hands.

"Officah, I sweah. It was self-defense."

The silence is thick in the crowd until they thin out at the sight of this woman's death. Amidst the gathering, a man dressed in a suit with a scarf around his neck, stands above the corpse that lies on the streets of Gotham. He wears his salt and pepper hair with pride and makes no effort to hide it like many Gotham citizens do. The man immediately begins treating the woman who is still struggling to keep whatever is left of her life intact. Gordon notices the man but looks back to Suzy who still bears the police officer hat. With nary a word, Gordon handcuffs the assailant.

"Dispatch, I have a 11-44 on the scene at the corner of 1st and Patrick Ave. Send Paramedics. I also have a 10-15 – Prisoner in Custody. Stand by."

"Copy, Gordon."

"But officah, she was chokin' me out." The warm breath from the nervous woman attempts to illicit a reaction; Gordon doesn't say a word. He walks down the street with the criminal in tow but stops to talk to Suzy. He squats to get to eye level. Jim holds the captive with his left hand.

"Suzy, I'm going to need that hat back." She is about to hand him the hat until she has second thoughts about returning it. She eventually decides to hand Jim his hat back.

"Sorry, Suzy. Rules are rules." Jim ends his statement with a cheeky grin.

"Where's my mom?" Suzy says while looking up at Jim. Her eyes wander to where her mother was last but Jim grabs Suzy's chin and points it at him.

"Mister, where is she?" Gordon stares intently at the little girl's eyes and is reflected in her pupils. Gordon replies with silence and is saved by the strange man, blood on his jacket with his scarf missing.

"The policeman has to go now. I'll take care of you," the man says to Suzy and then glances at Jim. "Will you? Jim responds.

"You have my word," the man says to him with an unflinching trust. Gordon had options but his best inclination was to leave her in the hands of the city that tore her mother away from her. Gordon's vibes were hit or miss though.

He wanted to stay and tell this little girl the truth that her mom had been stuck like a pig by a deranged woman but the words didn't leave his mouth. There were no comforting statements he could tell her. He'd only had the GCPD job for two years. Chalk this one up as another experience under the belt that held his pants up.

He walked back to the stoop that he put his coffee down on only to discover that the two coffees had been taken.

Jim snickers to himself. "This fucking city."

Sheltered from the cold in the undercover police Honda Accord sits Steven Song in the driver's seat. He intermittently glances at the passersby as they walk past the alleyway and blows warm air into his hands.

Steven is puzzled by the return of Jim Gordon with, no coffee in his possession, but a scantily clad woman yelling expletives at him. Steven cracks open the window

"Hey Jim, who's the lady?!" Steven grins at the two but Jim is focused intently on her destination.

Jim opens the back door of the car and pushes her into the car. Her head bangs on the roof of the car and elicits a reaction.

"Police Brutality! Police Brutality!" she protests as she lays down on the back seats. Having ignored this woman five blocks, Jim retorts.

"You want to talk to me about brutality?" He grabs the handcuffs and draws her in close to his face; so close that she can see every small crevice on his cheek. "If you want to make it back to the station and not in some gutter, I suggest you shut up."

Gordon grabs her high heels and shoves them to the car floor. He then enters the car through the passenger side door. There is an awkward silence between the two officers in the car.

Steven rolls up his window and turns the car on. "What're you doing?" says Jim in a quick retort.

"We should take her back to the…" Steven's protocol is given a quick reply from Gordon who slowly reaches for the car keys and removes them. The engine and the heat die. Steven doesn't pry any further.

"Notice anything?" Gordon says looking towards the onlookers walking by. "Not so much as a jingle ball," Steven replies with a sarcastic twinge. The stoic Jim can't help but chortle at Jim's idiom.

"Or a reindeer with a bright red nose." Jim looks to Steve who looks at him with a face of complete solemnity. "Jim, come on." Steve pulls out a cigarette from the inside of the central compartment. "That joke was doing fine till you took a double to it behind the shed." Jim laughs at - not only the partner's metaphor but at - his desperation as he scrambles around the car for a lighter.

"Where is that damn lighter?" Steve queries while checking nearly every compartment in the cruiser with his cigarette hanging precariously from his lips. He looks to Jim and sees that his partner is not making any eye contact with him. "Fork it over, clown." Steven puts out his palm and Jim complies. Steven tries to light his cigarette but the spark is not igniting the gas.

"You son of a bitch, Jim. This is cruel." Jim can't help but guffaw at his own hilarious antics.

"First you trade in the coffee for some transient…" Steven says while holding up his pointer finger as Jim waits for him to finish. "…Then you take away a man's smokes," Steven continues by putting his pointer finger down and raising his middle. "I swear, there's a special circle of hell for people like you." Jim doesn't even retort with the events that preceded, he's more than content allowing his partner to comically ramble.

Steven unbuckles himself and exits the vehicle; leaving the car door ajar. "I was only playing around. Lighten up." Knowing the way Jim returned to the police cruiser, Steve metaphorically bites his tongue.

"I'm going to the corner to get a lighter. You want anything? Maybe an escort and a pimp to round out the package." Steve nods to the silent woman in the back. Jim smiles. "No thanks, I'll just play babysitter." Steve slams the door shut and walks around the corner out of the alleyway.

Once Steven leaves, Jim continues staring at the citizens of Gotham walking by with nary a care in the world. The snow continues to dance towards the ground as the dark concrete is replaced with an idyllic postcard of Christmas, emulated on Gotham's streets – minus the hookers, drug addicts and the public debauchery.

A Santa, with a slim physique and a ten-dollar get-up, takes a position on the street corner and starts ringing his bell. As the citizens of Gotham drop bills and change in his red collection apparatus; Gordon leaves the Honda and approaches Saint Nick.

Gordon reaches into his pocket and licks his lips as the distance between him and the Santa closes. The Santa eyes Gordon and raises his cheeks with the smile hiding under the itchy used beard.

Gordon pulls out the change from his pocket, places it in the container, and the man continues his jubilant cries that echo throughout Gotham's streets.

"Thank you, officer. God Bless!"

Gordon doesn't leave. He stands in close proximity to the Santa; examining the uncovered part of his face. The Santa takes notice.

"Can I help you, officer?" the Santa says while shaking his bell.

"No," says Gordon with a straight face.

The ringing slows down. "Ho, ho, ho…"

The Santa glances to Jim who still has not broken his line of sight on the Santa. The Santa continues, spreading the good Christmas cheer, occasionally glancing back to Jim.

Jim breaks his concentration to see that his partner hasn't returned from his errands.

"Spreading a little Christmas cheer?" Gordon says with his eyebrows pointed down and his lips curling into his mouth.

"Yeah… trying." The Santa stops ringing the bell and faces Gordon down. "You got a problem with that, I suggest calling the charity."

Gordon smirks, "What charity is that exactly?" The Santa retorts with his own set of black and stained teeth. "You jealous of a Santa raising money for charity? What's the matter? Farmers ain't paying you pigs the slop you deserve?"

The Santa gets in spitting distance of Gordon but he doesn't flinch. Gordon stands resolute. "What's in the sack, Nicholas?" "Toys for the little children," the Santa replies with a sarcastic tone emphasizing each word.

A Gotham City patron passes by the Santa and the Gordon and drops some more change into the pot but some of the coins drop and chime with the city street like bells ringing in the air. The Santa reaches down to pick them up, one by one. When all the loose change is collected, Gordon grabs the Santa's wrist and forces to Santa to drop them by pressing the veins. The Santa screams out in pain but Gordon is impassive and retains his inhuman stare at the red and white man with the used beard.

"What the hell, man?! What is your problem?!"

The Santa's wrist is still held by Gordon who now controls the Santa. Gordon leans in to the Santa's ear.

"My problem is that punks like you go unchecked."

Gordon's voice grows louder as he becomes more impatient with the Santa.

"My problem is you."

A crowd grows like a fungus around Gordon and his grip on the charity Santa.

"What _is _your problem? One sales associate yells to Gordon. "A perfect picture. A cop aggressing against Santa Claus." Once the local Gotham City bank teller points out how well framed this image would be, every one in the crowd takes pictures with their phones. "I hope you enjoy your job, you son of a bitch," a teenager blurts to Gordon. "You won't have your job in the morning," a husband calls out to the frazzled GCPD officer. "No, he will. He'll just get a slap on the wrist!" The husband's wife proclaims and the other members of the crowd agree that Gordon is a public enemy. Gordon is in a state of paralysis.

James Gordon had always found himself in difficult situations. It was par for the course in his line of work. He'd settled disputes between pimps and hookers, addicts and their dealers and abusive husbands to their victims but never had he been forced to confront a crowd of this magnitude. He always tried to settle quarrels without resorting to violence and it usually worked in his favor. He was proud that he had rarely fired his gun that was permanently affixed to his belt. He never unsheathed his baton either as it remained in the loop on his pants.

All he could see was the anger and the ire in each of the Gotham City sympathizer's faces. All Gordon could think of was how he could end this circus. He relinquishes his grip of the Santa. The Santa grasps his discolored wrist and begins thanking everyone who had helped him. The Santa is rewarded by pats on the back and offers for a trip to Gotham General. Gordon's reward compensation is people's hisses and boos. One of the residents even manages to land a loogie directly on Gordon's clean-shaven cheek. He wipes it off immediately and scans the crowd to find the culprit.

"Who did that?! Who spit on me?! That is an arrestable offence." Gordon yells back at the crowd. They all turn and glare towards the irate officer.

"I don't know but whoever did, I'd like to buy a drink." "I'll take that drink."

The crowd began to collectively laugh and squawk at the verbal exchange. Gordon could barely distinguish one from person from another, much less their individual voices. They all blend together into a disjointed mass. Gordon tries to preserve his authoritative control with a stern expression but, much like his public display, was failing to manage.

One distinguishable face that Gordon fails to see in the crowd is the red and white Santa Claus. The sack and the loose change on the ground are also missing.

"Where is he?" Gordon addresses the crowd as calmly as he could as beads of sweat fall from the rim of his police hat.

The crowd couldn't contain themselves any longer, they just kept laughing at Gordon. He's an animal, yelling and smacking himself, for the amusement of others. The crowd grows larger and the photos and videos continue to document the scene as it played out.

Officer James Gordon, having lost complete control of the stage, finally overcomes his anxiety and tries to circumnavigate the mob. A few of the performers impede his path but he politely instructs them, as a GCPD officer, to move out of the way. When they refuse, Gordon effortlessly maneuvers around them.

Gordon continued to do this until one of the female members of the initial assemblage mimics his movements almost perfectly. She is a large woman but not in the traditional sense and certainly unlike the skewered pig still on the sidewalk. This was a tall woman that towered over Gordon and the light, once it pierced the snow clouds, perforated through her hair.

"You leave that poor man alone. That's a charity Santa Claus. Where do you get off?"

Her incessant ramblings and criticism all went in one ear and out the other and Gordon continuously tries to bypass this gargantuan woman but to no avail. Every time Gordon fails to get around her, he thinks of each foot that he has to make up when he pursues that Santa. Gordon reaches behind his back.

One of the Gothamites exclaims, "He's getting his gun out!"

Not Gordon. He was in complete control of his faculties when he removed his taser gun from his belt. He held it with one hand and had finally regained control of the crowd. Each of the Gotham City inhabitants backed off or was completely silent as Gordon walked outside of the perimeter of the mob. Even the Amazonian was shivering in fear as Gordon pointed the taser gun at her first. No one wanted 50,000 volts pulsing through their bodies and it was Gordon's weapon of choice for crowd control. Why Gordon saved it until now was beyond even him. He had lost control but violence and mute threats made the little ants get back in line. Gordon wiped the beads of sweat from his face and then kept the taser pointed at the crowd.

With his lips quivering, Gordon fights to get the words out.

"Nothing to see here."

And just like that – like a bat out of hell – he sprints after the Santa who was now out of sight. He turns the corner and scans the crowd of Gotham citizens that were running around one another – unsure of the gunman's identity. It didn't matter though. All the Gothamites knew is that they all had loved ones to get back to or significant others to console.

Some, however, stayed and watched Officer James Gordon in stark suspicion. Cameras and gazes were fixed onto the lonely police officer with the gun - all of them licking their lips for that precious moment of ad revenue. Suddenly, Gordon spots the Santa in street clothes emerging from an alleyway.

Gordon second-guessed himself. There is a slim chance that this was the same perpetrator that the city appreciated moments ago. Gordon's past assumptions were rarely on point but when he had an inkling, he felt it. He felt it in his back as it ascended throughout his spine. The man, confused and afraid, looked at the general public passing in front of him and headed down the street.

He brandished a black reflective trash bag that was slung over his shoulder. Gordon followed suit and walked toward the suspect. The unassuming man made his way through varied lefts and rights and Gordon followed him every step of the way. He wasn't a shadow; he was an apparition that was nothing more than cold air hanging in the empty space between the city and her people.

The suspect led Gordon, through a labyrinth of streets and alleyways, to a decrepit house and when Gordon saw this house, he quietly muttered to himself, "I should have known." Truth is, Gordon couldn't have known. It was just as unassuming as the man Gordon followed and mimicked the adjacent houses with the single tree collecting snow and paint peeling off the side of the house.

Gordon knew that this house, the yellow one with the screen door ajar was the house the held the mystery suspect of a Santa that could be miles away. Once again, Gordon's spine shivered but it was becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether it was "tis the season," or not. Gordon approaches his best guess and his radio snaps to life. He fumbles with his radio.

"Gordon, where are you?" His AWOL partner had missed all of the action and probably for the better. It was now Gordon's words against anyone else's.

"I'm on Fifth and White." Gordon mutters again to his radio.

"I Can Hear You, Pig!" One of the houses Gordon is facing uttered the statement and Gordon reacted on instinct and took cover on a nearby car. His gaze was turned to the cars that pay no attention to Gordon and his current predicament.

"I Can Still See You, Oinker!" The suspect calls Gordon's attention to, not the house that he had chosen but the house next door with red bricks but with the same solitary tree accumulating powder in the tops of the its branches. Gordon knew the man could see him better than he could. He eyed the man in the 2nd story window and this left Gordon exposed – even with his back up against the car and facing the street. Gordon looked to the people walking by. They were observing and monitoring the altercation between the officer and the man but went about their business. Gordon had been a victim of this kind of treatment before.

"I'm going to count to three…" Gordon's practiced line is cut off by the man shooting at him with a Sawed off shotgun. The glass on the windshield of the car breaks and bounces over Gordon. Another blast comes near Gordon's head and ricochet's off the pavement. Gordon looks back to the Gotham City citizens, who have now evacuated, much to Gordon's surprise. Their levels of ambivalence moments ago suggests to Gordon that there could have been an earthquake that split Gotham in half and they still would carry on. "This fucking city." Gordon thought to himself briefly before pressing the buttons on his radio.

"Dispatch. We have a 10-71 on Fifth Ave and White. Suspect is a male in a red brick house. Unable to get any visuals on him." Dispatch replies promptly. "Roger, Gordon. Hang tight, back up is en route."

"Back up?" Gordon questions his reflexes as two more shots came down on top of him. The car shakes and rattles as a bevy of shots penetrates the thin metal. Gordon removes his 9mm pistol from his holster. He pulls the hammer back and his breath fogs the metal of the gun. There was a silence after that last buckshot and Gordon found it quite peculiar. He pokes his head out from over the hood of the car that had more in common with a sea sponge with curves and angles that pokes out and around. Gordon moves to the back of the car and pokes his head out again. Nothing - not even a mouse.

Gordon picks himself up but only to crouch walk to the back of the house - over the hoses and the children's toys and under the ladder that is leaning between the red brick house and the yellow-painted house. Gordon was leaving his footprints all over the front and side of the house. If the suspect had a brain between his ears, he would have been able to shoot Gordon and end this whole fiasco.

Gordon peeked through the side windows and saw the interior of a grandmother's house but no one with a shotgun. Gordon made his way to the back of the small yard with a snow-covered trampoline and shed poorly placed in corners of the yard. As Gordon approached the back patio of the corroding house, he could see into the house through the screen door left partly open. He tries, with his heavy standard issue police boots, to make every step as light as a bullet casing.

Gordon squinted to try and scan the house for the perp. Suddenly, his radio cracks to life and dispatch is rattling off some incoherent ramblings. Gordon turns off the radio in a hurry but subsequently trips and falls on the snowy steps of the patio. Gordon felt warmness in his shoulder as he fell. It was the comfortable warmth that he hadn't felt in so long and when he finally hit the ground, he was able to properly examine it. His fingers danced over his warm shoulder and he could smell the copper. Gordon, now realizing that he had been shot, sprints to the nearby shed – grasping his bloodied shoulder.

Gordon could plainly see the man in the second story window – facing the backyard – and his bloodstain in the snow.

"I Got You. I Can See Where You Bleed!" The man shouted to Gordon; mocking him and the holes in his shoulder. Gordon couldn't even remember the Miranda rights as he begun firing upon the second story window. He took a break to hold his wound and keep pressure on it. The man with the sawed off returned fire. This exchange went on for the better part of two minutes until Gordon could hear the sirens approaching.

"You hear that…?" Gordon whispered under his breath. He thought his voice was louder than it was but his threat was so muted that the man didn't even notice he had said anything. All the man could do was nervously panic as he tossed the gun out the second story window in a vain attempt to abscond himself of ever being at his place of residence. He sprinted around the house in a panic and went out the back door. He picked up his gun and headed for Gordon's cover.

"Where's my little piglet?" Gordon knew what this man was planning because Gordon would do the exact same thing. As the man stomped towards the shed, with the splintered wood and the shattered metal that he had been firing at moments ago, he did not find a GCPD officer there. The man was scared now as he flipped back and forth in all directions to see that there was still no Officer James Gordon anywhere.

Gordon, before the man had trudged to the shed, had moved around the left side of the shed to get the drop on him. He clubbed the man with the butt of his gun and the man fell to the ground like a corpse. Gordon gives him one more strike from his gun; the blood rises from the back of the skull and falls onto the snow. Gordon, panting and struggling to pull his handcuffs out manages to subdue the man. Gordon pauses, thinking to himself that the lawful thing to do would be to read him his rights. But having just been shot changed his mind.

"I'm not even going to bother." Gordon collapses onto the ground, next to the criminal, and the two of them lay – blood stained and fatigued – on the snow. Gordon knew the criminal wouldn't make a getaway. Not only had he nearly crushed his skull in, where was he going to go? Gordon wanted to use this rare opportunity to see if his vibes were correct and if he pursued the Santa on the curb. Gordon rolled him over and, not only did the man not have the right number of teeth, but he was barely even the right skin color. Gordon knew his job wasn't in jeopardy but in a strange sense, he felt as if he had failed. He had failed Gotham City.

He rolled back over onto his back and stared on into the sky. The snowflakes danced onto his face and he tried to wipe it off of his face but eventually abandoned that notion. It collected onto his face and his uniform. It couldn't bury him as fast as it was melting but he could feel each individual flake settle on the imperfections of his dime-store mug. His grasp was pinned to his warm shoulder and the other hand held the handcuffs of the unconscious man that lay next to him.

Sooner or later, the GCPD would be come to collect the two of them and Officer James Gordon could finally rest and let his eyelids gradually slide down.


End file.
